


my love, we are bound.

by SeeThemFlying



Series: Unspoken [9]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brienne is on Tarth, Epistolary, F/M, Jaime is Lord Commander, Mutual Longing, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Separated Lovers, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, book canon, post-Long Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28718520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeThemFlying/pseuds/SeeThemFlying
Summary: When he receives a letter from Brienne, Lord Commander Jaime Lannister mulls on the weight of oaths...
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Satin Flowers/Jon Snow
Series: Unspoken [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024483
Comments: 36
Kudos: 80





	my love, we are bound.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarahtarth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahtarth/gifts).



> Hey guys! Thanks for coming back for this next one! I have long loved the idea of Lord Commander Jaime Lannister but have never done anything with it, so here is a little melancholy ficlet that has been floating around my head for a while. It is for the lovely sarahoftarth, who always leaves such kind comments.
> 
> The song referred to in this chapter is "Hands of Gold" by GRRM.

The winds at the Wall are cold - biting even - enough to turn lips so blue no kiss can warm them, even kisses rendered scalding by memory. Nevertheless, some of the longest standing members of the Watch insist that the iciness is better than it had been before Jon Snow had gone North to join the Others, to sign the peace treaty in his own blood.

"It's almost balmy, m'lord," says Satin lightly as he serves the Lord Commander his dinner. "Before Jon left, he would often say that if you didn't cover your fingers there was always a danger that they would fall off!"

Jaime smiles lightly at his steward as the bowl of broth and cup of wine is placed down in front of him. It is coloured like a mottled bird's egg and makes him feel a little queasy, but he knows there is nothing better to eat up here. The men of the Night's Watch devote themselves to keeping the Wall standing, to fulfilling the terms of the Pact all mankind had signed, and to nurturing the fires of what it meant to be human. They had no time to eat fine foods, wear fine clothes, or lie with and love fine women. Lord Commander Jaime Lannister can deal with much of the deprivation, just as his men do, except for the last. He looks down at his golden hand regretfully, a half forgotten song unravelling in his head.

_For hands of gold are always cold, but a woman's hands are warm..._

Without her, he starves.

"Still, it is a touch too cold for an old southron like me," smirks Jaime, trying to get his mind back to the present moment. "I am used to the sticky heat of King's Landing and the ocean air of Casterly Rock. I feel the cold of the North in my very bones."

"I am a southron too, m'lord, raised in Oldtown," replies Satin, crossing the room to warm his hands by the fire, "but it is not the cold that I find most trying."

"No?"

"No," says Satin, his dark eyes catching the firelight. Jaime sees melancholy there. "It is... oh, I don't know how to explain it."

"The loneliness?" suggests Jaime, awkwardly picking up his spoon in an effort to distract himself from how close this conversation is getting to his undefended heart.

Satin shakes his head. "No, not the loneliness," he sighs. "Life on the Wall has given me hundreds of brothers I never had in Oldtown, and a person who has meant more to me than I ever thought possible." Jaime says nothing, as he knows Satin is talking of Jon Snow. "I think it is the singleness I struggle with. That no matter how much I devote to this life, at the end I will be unconnected. No wife or children to mourn me. No great love. Just me... rotting in the ground."

There is a pause as the two of them weigh up that skeletal idea, stretching out the word and wrapping it around their own lives while the fire crackles quietly.

 _She'll mourn me,_ Jaime thinks, _even if it is only within the privacy of her own heart._

Eventually, as Jaime offers him no more words to describe their predicament, Satin nods, ending the tension. The whole room seems to glow orange in the firelight.

"Is there anything else you need, m'lord?"

Silence. Unable to stand the intensity of Satin's gaze, Jaime looks down at his broth once more. His defences are so weak that his determination not to think of her crumbles at the simplest of confessions. "Could you please give me a moment to compose a letter? I would like one sent south, but I need time to... gather my thoughts."

"And eat," replies Satin.

Jaime smirks sadly. "And eat."

With their usual easy rapport restored after a dangerous dance with true intimacy, Satin bows to Jaime. "I have some errands to run for the Maester, but I can be back in an hour if that suits, m'lord?"

"It does suit. It takes me some time to write a letter." He waves his gold hand in the air in order to indicate why.

Chuckling warmly, Satin makes his way towards the door.

"Enjoy your dinner, m'lord."

"I'll try."

After one more bright smile, Satin leaves Jaime alone, and the Lord Commander is immediately reminded of the sharpness of his singleness. Abandoning his broth, he gets up from the finely wrought table that had belonged to Jon Snow and Jeor Mormont before him and walks over to the fireplace that Satin had left burning mere moments before. As he reaches for the locked box resting on the mantel, music plays in his ears.

_For she was his secret treasure, she was his shame and his bliss..._

With nervous fingers Jaime retrieves the letter - worn with the times Jaime has read and reread the fading ink - and unfolds it gently.

_My love,_

_It has been several moons since I last heard from you, sweetling, and it leaves my heart quite sore. How do you fare on the Wall? Is it cold? Too cold for a pampered southron knight like you? I know we may not be man and wife, but I will sew you a cloak if it pleases you, for your warmth or your amusement. If I send it to you, will you write? I long to hear from you, and not knowing news of you leaves me without anchor. What am I without you?_

_Life here is the same as always. Pod is improving day by day and sometimes he talks of going to the Wall to join you, to be a true knight and defend the realm from darkness. My father is recovering from a chill - I think the warmer weather is doing him good - and he even has the energy to take walks along the beach. That makes me happy. Every day, Hyle prepares for our marriage much to my father's pleasure. I think I never truly appreciated the difficulty of keeping an oath until this moment; part of me thinks that, if you just gave the word, I would abandon it all and come away with you. For even though you are far away, my love, we are bound, heart to heart and soul to soul. The dawn has no brilliance when you are not here, and I fear the flowers will never grow, because there is no sunlight to warm them._

_So, please will you write? Even just a few words will put stars back in my night sky._

_With all my love,_

_Brienne, your wench._

Since receiving this letter just over a week ago, Jaime has been mulling over what to do. After Jon Snow had sworn his life away to bring peace to the world, Jaime had been devoted to keep the words of that Pact writ large in the rebuilding of the Wall. As the first Lord Commander after the War for the Dawn, Jaime knows he has a duty to the people of Westeros, the very same people young Jon Snow had given his life for.

Yet duty does not keep him warm at night.

Every time he closes his eyes, Jaime dreams of Brienne of Tarth and the taste of those secret kisses they had once shared. In the mornings when Jaime wakes, he has the privilege of looking at the very curve of the earth from the top of the Wall, at the great expanse of life stretching out before him. Some say it is the most wondrous sight in the world, but it has nothing on the blue of her eyes. He thinks of her, he dreams of her, he longs for her, and in his weakness, he touches himself in the pitch black night in an attempt to end the aching. It never works. From the corner of his mind, Jaime hears her singing to him, just as she had on the first night of the siege of Winterfell.

_And a chain and a keep are nothing, compared to a woman's kiss..._

Not returning to his broth, Jaime finds some parchment and ink before removing his only glove. It is cold in the North, but he will risk his fingers for her. He reads the desperation in her words - _it has been several moons since I last heard from you and it leaves my heart quite sore_ \- and he feels the echo of her pain in his chest. Tasting the bitterness of his guilt and jealousy, Jaime sighs. Since hearing that Brienne was planning on marrying Hyle Hunt, he has been paralysed by _what ifs_ and has found himself unable to write to her _._ Wrapped up together in furs at Winterfell, they had once dreamed of retiring to Tarth together, of getting married and having children... lots of children. In the darkest days of the War, Jaime had clung to that dream to keep himself sane, holding onto Brienne so tightly at night that it sometimes made her laugh.

"We'll be together properly soon, my love," she had whispered, smoothing his hair and soothing his heart with her hand. "Somewhere, there is a place for us. We'll have a house of our own, and a bed and a fire to keep us warm..." She had stuttered on something unsaid, before finding her courage and letting it come out in a rush. "And you can come inside me, Jaime, instead of in my hand or on my stomach... we don't have to worry about me falling pregnant. We can have a family, a baby... you and me, Jaime. You and me."

Of course, the world had got in the way, but he still aches for it sometimes.

He aches for it now.

 _Brienne,_ he writes in his scraggly, barely legible hand.

_This is my word. Run away with me. Meet me at the docks of White Harbour on the next Maiden's Day after the new moon. There is no need to make me a cloak. I will be warm once I am in your arms again._

_Damn the world. We owe it nothing anyway._

_Forever yours, Jaime._

Once the letter had been written, Jaime returns to his broth. It is lukewarm and tasteless, but everything is at the Wall, so he eats it anyway. With the letter lying on the table, Jaime thinks of what he will do when he sees Brienne again. Pull her into his arms? Kiss her senseless? Try to avoid the inescapable feeling that he is doing something wrong?

"It's got to be you," Jon Snow had said to him before walking over the horizon to embrace his fate. "You are the only man who can lead the Night's Watch into this new world."

Jaime had looked at him confusedly, unsure of where his certainty came from. "Why?"

The man who had killed the boy, faced death and ridden back again, had smiled at him sadly. "You are the only one who knows what it is like to sacrifice all that matters to what is right. I trust you to do it again."

That night, Brienne had wept in his arms as Jaime had told her what he must do and had promised he would write.

Yet he knows now that letters are not enough, can never be enough. Brienne of Tarth is on the other side of the world preparing to climb into another man's bed, and all because of a promise Jaime Lannister had made to Rhaegar Targaryen's dying son. To assuage his guilt over two dead children, Jaime had denied Brienne the children she wanted to bear him, wanted to have _with_ him, and broke her heart in two for a bloodless oath.

 _Maybe I was wrong,_ he thought. _Maybe I can be selfish, just this once..._

"Ser?"

Jaime raises his head and sees that Satin has returned. The young steward has a sprinkling of snow on his dark hair and cloak, showing that he has been walking the length of the Wall while doing his duties. It surprises Jaime that an hour has passed already, yet perhaps it is not shocking since he has been known to lose himself in thoughts of Brienne for days at a time.

"Can I help you, Satin?"

Jon Snow's lover smiles uneasily, his dark eyes searching for the truth in his new master's face.

"You wanted me to send a letter south to... to... the Lady Brienne." Jaime sighs. Was he really so transparent? "Do you want me to take it to the rookery?"

Turning away from Satin, Jaime picks up the letter that would be his salvation from the table. His old bones creak as he crosses the room, letter in hand, and finds he cannot look back at the man who had surrendered his love for the sake of the world.

"No thank you. I have changed my mind."

This confession clearly surprises Satin, as the man nods uncertainly, clearly not able to tie the Lord Commander's words with the Lord Commander's actions.

"Is there anything else you need, m'lord?"

Jaime shakes his head. "No, that is all. I will see you in the morning."

"Good night."

"Good night."

With those final words, Satin departs the Lord Commander's chambers as he has done a thousand times before, though this time he is not warmed by a lover's touch. The fire crackles, temptingly. The Lord Commander makes his decision. Alone, Jaime Lannister makes certain that he too will never be warmed by a woman's kiss again, throwing the letter into the fire - the hungry, all-consuming fire - before he can have the chance to grow weak again.

He tries not to cry as the words, filled with his longing, are burnt into ashes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As ever, I would love to hear what you think!


End file.
